He's a Keeper
by nannygirl
Summary: Hyde has finished working his first week at The Foto Hut and Kitty has just come home from working a double shift at the hospital, but both still make the time to catch up over a late night cup of hot cocoa. A short story taking place right after 'Sleepover.'


_**Disclaimer: **__I own nothing. I do not own That '70s Show or any of the characters that are mention in this story. I do not own the episode that this story takes place near. I own nothing!_

_**Author's Note: **__Hello everyone! How are you all? Hope you're doing well! Finishing up school, getting ready for summer? Hope your excited! Today I have for you a little story that I worked on a few weeks ago. Now some may think this is a surprise oneshot but really if you've been reading my stories long enough or check out my older stories you'll notice that for the past three or four years I've posted a Hyde and Kitty story on May 31st. (All family centered of course!) Don't ask me why because I really don't know but it's become a sort of tradition and while I enjoyed writing this piece I hope you all enjoy participating in the tradition by reading and hopefully enjoying this story. And good news is, if you do enjoy it and haven't read the other Hyde and Kitty stories there are more on my profile :) Now this years take place in season 2 right after the episode 'Sleepover' you don't have to watch the episode to understand the story, but if you want to feel free to do so! :D I hope you all like this story. And if you have the time to review please do, I would love to hear your thoughts! Long or short, signed in or unsigned in! I hope you like it, please review if you can, I hope you like, and as always please, Enjoy!_

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**He's a Keeper**

Kitty Forman trudged into her darkened kitchen from the sliding glass doors that led out to the patio and driveway. She had just finished off a double shift at the hospital and was more than ready to go upstairs, climb into bed, snuggle into her husband's strong arms, and go to sleep. Her mind was already beginning to go into hibernation mode and her eyes were halfway closed as she walked through the room, one hand already beginning to unpin her nurses hat on her head. She never noticed the figure standing at the open fridge until they called out to her.

"Hi Mrs. Forman."

Startled by the visitor, Kitty jumped up an inch or two and her heart began beating rapidly as she forgot all about her taking of her cap and turned around to find a curly haired young man with a familiar, but shade less, face.

"Oh Steven. It's only you" She breathed with relief, her hand resting over her heart.

Hyde nodded, closing the refrigerator door, already feeling bad for scaring the poor woman, "Yeah, it's me Mrs. Forman. Sorry about that. I didn't mean to scare you."

"It's okay, honey, it's okay." She assured now smiling and using that same hand that had been trying to calm her heart rate to wave off the incident and hopefully the young boy's guilt, "What are you doing up at this hour anyway, sweetie?"

At this hour? Hyde's instinct was to make a remark about how it was only a little after midnight, the night hadn't even started. He'd gone to bed much later than this when he was living over with Edna and it was part of the reason he sometimes had trouble getting to sleeping when the rest of the Forman house had said their goodnights. But he didn't mind, he liked the alone time, he was a night owl. As long as he got three to four hours of sleep he'd be good.

Of course Hyde knew he couldn't say any of this to Kitty so he just shrugged his shoulders.

"I couldn't sleep." He replied—not a complete lie.

"Oh, you poor dear." Kitty said with much sympathy and concern in her voice, "Is it too cold down there? Is it too hot? Is the room so small it feels like the walls are closing up on you? I told Red the basement was no place for a growing boy like you to be staying." She went on never letting Hyde get a word in.

Shaking her head she continued on, "No, no, you are coming upstairs with me right now and we'll get you set up in Eric's room with him, I'm sure he won't mind."

He opened his mouth to protest, knowing that there was a big problem with that idea but he quickly shut it again when he realized he didn't know how he could explain to Kitty that her son's girlfriend was sneaking into his room at night to sleep—actually sleep—with him. Kitty didn't seem to notice though as she went on about her new idea.

"We could even go check on Laurie and if she's not home you can stay in there tonight and tomorrow Red and I will go out and by some bunk beds to put in Eric's room for the two of you." she giggled, "Won't that be fun?"

Hyde didn't want to hurt her feelings but he couldn't share a room with Forman. The few weeks he'd stayed with him, when he first moved in, were torture enough.

"No, Mrs. Forman." He finally managed to cut in, "Really, it's okay. The basement's cool. It's great. I just…couldn't sleep."

"Oh." She said with a small frown that quickly turned upside down and into a smile, "Well would you like me to fix you a nice glass of warm milk?"

He shook his head at the kind offer, "Nah, I've never been a warm milk kinda guy."

"Then how about some hot cocoa?"

Hearing this offer, Hyde couldn't help but smirk, "I could go for some hot cocoa."

"Good!" Kitty said happily as she smiled and headed over to the cabinets for the needed ingredients, "You sit down and I'll get started. One cup of hot cocoa coming right u…p!"

Kitty said the last word with some struggle and with a small frown Hyde looked over and saw that the muffled 'up' had been caused by a yawn from the motherly figure. It was then that Hyde remembered why she was in the kitchen at this hour and why she was still wearing her nurse's uniform. She was just coming home from a long day of work and he was having her make him hot cocoa—now he really felt terrible.

"Um Mrs. Forman, you know," he began, grabbing her attention, "if you're too tired, I can wait on the hot cocoa for another time."

"Oh nonsense, Steven" she chided lightly, "You can never be too tired to make hot cocoa. And besides all this talk about hot cocoa has put me in the mood for some, I may just join you for a cup."

Hyde's smirk reappeared at this. He felt better and he didn't really mind the thought of spending a few more minutes with Mrs. Forman while enjoying some hot cocoa.

He nodded and slipped into his regular seat at the kitchen table, "Cool."

With the hot cocoa materials in her arms, Kitty smiled and headed over to the stovetop. The kitchen was filled with a silence as Hyde waited patiently for the soothing chocolaty drink. He watched as Kitty heated up the milk and then when it was warm enough, poured the other ingredients into the sauce pan following the steps that she must have followed a countless of number of times.

Though the quietness was comfortable, Kitty had been working longer hours this week and felt like she'd barely seen her family, she wanted to hear what they'd been up to and she saw this as the perfect opportunity to find out how the week had gone for this member of her family.

"So Steven," she began, stirring the hot mixture with a wooden spoon, "How was school?"

Hyde shrugged, since moving in to the Forman home he'd started getting use to being asked such a question and having to give an actual answer. Living with Edna, if she'd ever ask such a question, he'd either grumble back at her or give a short response of 'it was school' or just ignored her completely. But he wasn't living there anymore and this wasn't Edna, it was Mrs. Forman and for some reason Hyde never found it all too difficult to talk to her.

"It was alright." He answered before elaborating some more, "I got my latest test back."

Looking at Kitty one would have thought she was focused completely on the liquid filled pot but the truth was her full attention was on Hyde and his response, "And how did you do?"

"Got a C minus." Hyde said not sounding proud but not ashamed either.

Kitty's eyes darted to the young man, "Oh." She said sounding more like she felt disappointed _for_ him and not _at_ him.

"Yeah, but it was for geometry." He informed and before he realized it he was saying much more than he'd planned to say in front of the motherly figure, "I don't get why we've gotta learn the stuff anyway. Only people that use geometry in real life are geometry teachers."

"That's true." Kitty agreed with a nod much to Hyde surprise, "You know when I was in school, math was always my worst subject too. I could never understand how someone could but so many watermelons and not get any strange looks."

Having had similar thoughts on this before Hyde gave a short chuckle and nodded in agreement.

"But while you're still in school it's important that you learn these subjects." Kitty added in her mothering tone, "So you'll try harder next time, right?"

Hyde looked at Kitty and nodded his head before giving a truthful, "Right."

"Good." she grinned and went to retrieve two mugs from the cabinets.

Though he had gotten used to being asked the question, Hyde was glad that it was over and done with. Still it was nice to be asked about how one's day went. It was with this thought in mind that Hyde turned his head to see Kitty walking back to the stove with a yellow coffee cup in each of her hands.

"How was work?"

Kitty wasn't used to be asked this question—well with the exception of Red on a few occasions, but never by one of her children—so it took her a few seconds to realize that he was talking to her.

She gave a giggle that was a mix of embarrassment and flattery, "It was just fine. Oh! And I found out that Charlene will be back to work tomorrow so tonight was my last night of working the evening shift."

"Cool." Hyde said with a grin, "Good timing too. I finished off the menu at The Hub when I had dinner there again tonight."

Suddenly pausing from pouring the hot cocoa into one of the mugs, Kitty stopped smiling and her forehead indented with concern, "Red's not exactly Chef Boyardee is he?"

"Yeah, you can say that again." responded Hyde smirking at the memory of some of the meals Red had tried to make these past few days, "Heard he got so desperate he actually took some of Fez's cooking advice."

"Oh my, that must have been a very fun scene. Wasn't it?" Kitty asked smiling at just imagining the moment Hyde had described, with two mugs of hot cocoa in her hands she began to approach the table.

Hyde scratched his cheek, "I don't know. I kinda missed out on it when I was working my shift at work."

Kitty placed one of the mugs in front of Hyde and her smile grew but for a whole new reason.

"Oh that's right! You got your first job!" she said happily, "Congratulations! We are just so proud of you!" she ended her best wishes with a quick kiss on the top of his head.

"Thanks." Hyde replied and took a sip of his cocoa to hide his own growing smile.

She sat down beside Hyde with her mug of hot cocoa, ready to hear more about his job, "So tell me about. Where is it? Do you like your co-workers? What's your boss like? Oh, do you get to wear a cute little uniform? I want to hear everything."

"Uh well…" he struggled to figure out how to explain his new job to Kitty, he hadn't even said too much about it to the guys. Maybe answering her already made questions would be enough. "I'm working at that photo place. The Foto Hut. Aren't too many co-workers. The guy that runs it is pretty cool. And luckily, no uniforms of any kind."

"Well I really am so proud of you, Steven." She said and if her words weren't clear enough, her tone of voice told Hyde that she really was proud of him, "And that money that you gave me and Red the other night?"

Hyde looked down at the marshmallows floating around in his drink. He didn't regret giving the Forman's his pay he wanted to do it; what he didn't want to do was talk about it. He didn't want to hear about how they didn't need him to chip in with paying the bills, especially not when he knew the truth. He knew he should've done this all anonymously like leaving extra money around the house for them to find; the only thing that had stopped him from doing that was the risk of Laurie finding it first and spending it on some new hair product.

Kitty smiled softly as she watched Hyde avoid her gaze. She could tell that he was embarrassed and she thought it was kind of cute—he reminded her of Red. And if he was anything like her husband, she knew he wouldn't want to talk about the good deed more than it needed to be talked about. She wanted to tell him about Red's plans of putting the money in the bank for him but decided against it; still she had to say something about his kind gesture.

"Thank you, honey." She told him with much sincerity in her voice, "That really was so sweet of you."

Hyde wasn't expecting those words to come from Kitty. At least not until after a longer discussion about how he didn't need to do any of this. However, he didn't question it. And it felt nice to receive such a genuine thank you.

"Um yeah…yeah, well…" he paused and looked back up from his drink, "You and Red took me in and you know, helped me out a lot. I…it was the least I could do."

Her grin still in place, Kitty reached over and placed her hand on his forearm, giving it a small squeeze, "You're a good boy, Steven. And we are so lucky to have you here with us."

Giving a smile Hyde looked back at Kitty. He was touched by her words but he knew that the truth was he was the lucky one.

**The End**

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_**Author's Note: **__So what did you think? Yay? Nay? A+? C-? Lemme know in a review!_

_Thank you all for reading once again. I hope you enjoyed it, I really do love writing stories with these two and like I said, if you enjoy reading moments with Hyde and Kitty be sure to check out my profile for some more. :)_

_Until next time, thanks for reading, hope you liked, please review and lemme know what you think, take care, and have a nice day!_


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